dans la paris
It was decided on monday that a road-trip to paris was needed. I blame selly. Her and her big ideas. She reckons just cause she's a big brain student now she can have all the great ideas. So, as it was, I was collected by Sawyer at 11.30pm friday night. As a fair and dutiful road-trip companion, my job was to provide mix-tapes, conversation, keep the driver alert and stay awake myself. H-ard work pal. We arrived at Dover almost 2 hours early for our 5.15 am ferry. (eugh). Brilliant I thought, I'll have a nap in the car..not an option. Okay then, I'll have a nap on the ferry, not an option. In the car in france on the road down to paris?? no. In the hotel before we hit gay Paree?? no. Hence, 37 hours awakeness pain/joy/hilarity.
The interweb had said the hotel was 4 KM from the centre of the city. Genius. A little walky will wake us up. So, armed with just a christmas cracker compass, off we headed east along the banks of the Seine. Apparently, they like the organic style of pavement engineering. Added bricks, holes, toilet smells, tree roots a bonus. Upon spying a tethered hot-air balloon, we decided this was where the party was at. It turned out it wasn't though i did collect some acorns from here on the way home. Yeah, rock n roll i know. Trying to get out of this park was like krypton factor meets the times crossword. We ended up in narnia where there was an old french man trying to hide behind an olve tree. Cute.
We continued along the Seine and nerd-eyes reynolds spotted the eiffel tower along the skyline. This, was our target. If you're gonna be a tourist, do it all out. Turns out, 4KM in french money is the equivalent to about 5 miles. L-ame. Upon arrival at the tour d'eiffel, we played the tourist game. Photo click-click. We viewed it from all angles but the killer heat was getting to us, we needed beer and we needed it now. After passing a poor-man's girls aloud getting out of a british limo opposite the tower (?) we found the perfect pavement cafe/bar for drinking/people watching/trying not to die of tired. I ordered 2 beers. 'Small medium or large' the waiter asked. 'Large' I replied. We were on holiday and we were going to do it properly. I saw a sign that said 'Large beer €6'. Genius. I'd go a little over the top for holiday beer. Beers arrived. I felt like a kid when they go out for a meal (with their family of course, kids don't go restaurants.) and they get brought a giant knicker-bocker-glory with sauce and flakes and sparklers and bells and whistles and all that jazz on. It was fucking huge. A litre. A giant litre of delicious beer. I remember very little of the following couple of hours. I annotated the placemat for memory-spark skills at a later date. We ate and had a couple more beers. At this point we'd been awake 31hrs each-ish. Beer and sleep deprivation makes for win/fail. We were a little obsessed with the bollard inspector. Well from what we could gather that was his primary occupation. Ha-ha, ho-ho, oh excuse me can we have the bill please. 4 Beers (monolithic variety), 1 steak, 1 salad = €96
Turns out, worlds' biggest beers cost €18 each. Good job we were drunk otherwise i may have cried. We paid up and weaved a path back towards the hotel. Plan was to head home, nap and shower etc then head back out later to get ass violated by the tourist bars. Genius. When we arrived back at the eiffel tower 'viewing deck' we decided it was time for a nap already and lay down an dhad a little sleepy amongst all the milling tourists. Not the best idea. There was no way either of us could make it back to the hotel yet, 4km or 45 miles away, whatever it was. We moved under a tree into the shade so we could sleep off some of the beer so we could make it home wthout dying.
I awoke three times over the following hour or so, gauging my sober rating with a little stumble around the grass, much to the amusement of the surrounding spectators. I finally managed a walk without tripping over my own hands and awoke sawyer. Bad move. Dude had to throw up in a bush under the tower. It's a good job i'm devoid of the shame gene. After being incredibly respectful too and taking a piss in above mentioned bush, i emerged to find Sawyer chatting to a local and then stepping out in the road in front of a carnival float. I pulled him back by his throat/arm/t-shirt and this was a theme to be repeated all the way back to the hotel. I purchased approximately 14 gallons of bottled water, some coke, bananas and a mars bar. (Tasted foreign). How I kept the will to live when I could barely keep my eyes open and my companion is walking into oncoming traffic is beyond me.
I have vague recollections of singing morrissey and considering a career as a road crossing inspector and another little nap on the pavement opposite the hotel....but we eventually made it. There were grand intentions to make it back out that evening, but when i hit the 37th hour...(9pm) i was fast asleep, as we both were till 10am the following morning.
We had cancelled out the hangovers, checked out the hotel like lil chris and headed back into paris, this time along the north bank of the river towards the arc de triumph and the champs elysee. The walk nearly killed me. I think we frequented approximately 78% of the benches along our way. We wondered exactly how far we'd walked when we reached the Statue of Liberty.
The parisian drivers are mentally ill. All of them. There are no lanes, rules, laws. Nothing. It's a free for all. When we saw a car being pulled over by three army trucks and a police car, the only conclusion i could draw was that he had a dead stripper in the boot because there were blatantly no traffic lawsin place. We sat at the foot of the arch and watched the traffic. It was like a cross between whacky races, hillbilly rally and booze britain.
The rest of the Sunday was fairly sedate. Lunch in the sun with espresso and sunburn. A brilliant idea to take the walk up the eiffel tower. Why oh why did i say yes? I could have spent that €3 on, i dunno, a pipette full of beer. I made it almost to the first platform when i practically died. I was lightheaded, dizzy, unable to breathe and about to faint. Brill. I blame anaemia. I headed back down and lay on the grass, (our favourite are from the day before as it was) and took photos of a girl with ugly extensionswhile sawyer headed up to the second platform.
Walk home with muchas complaining and a bet where i may or may not have gambled my cat away with regards to the location of narnia.
Morrissey shall always remind me of driving out of Paris, through the death tunnels, in the sunshine, happy but exhausted.
Spontaneity is the name of the game
x
The interweb had said the hotel was 4 KM from the centre of the city. Genius. A little walky will wake us up. So, armed with just a christmas cracker compass, off we headed east along the banks of the Seine. Apparently, they like the organic style of pavement engineering. Added bricks, holes, toilet smells, tree roots a bonus. Upon spying a tethered hot-air balloon, we decided this was where the party was at. It turned out it wasn't though i did collect some acorns from here on the way home. Yeah, rock n roll i know. Trying to get out of this park was like krypton factor meets the times crossword. We ended up in narnia where there was an old french man trying to hide behind an olve tree. Cute.
We continued along the Seine and nerd-eyes reynolds spotted the eiffel tower along the skyline. This, was our target. If you're gonna be a tourist, do it all out. Turns out, 4KM in french money is the equivalent to about 5 miles. L-ame. Upon arrival at the tour d'eiffel, we played the tourist game. Photo click-click. We viewed it from all angles but the killer heat was getting to us, we needed beer and we needed it now. After passing a poor-man's girls aloud getting out of a british limo opposite the tower (?) we found the perfect pavement cafe/bar for drinking/people watching/trying not to die of tired. I ordered 2 beers. 'Small medium or large' the waiter asked. 'Large' I replied. We were on holiday and we were going to do it properly. I saw a sign that said 'Large beer €6'. Genius. I'd go a little over the top for holiday beer. Beers arrived. I felt like a kid when they go out for a meal (with their family of course, kids don't go restaurants.) and they get brought a giant knicker-bocker-glory with sauce and flakes and sparklers and bells and whistles and all that jazz on. It was fucking huge. A litre. A giant litre of delicious beer. I remember very little of the following couple of hours. I annotated the placemat for memory-spark skills at a later date. We ate and had a couple more beers. At this point we'd been awake 31hrs each-ish. Beer and sleep deprivation makes for win/fail. We were a little obsessed with the bollard inspector. Well from what we could gather that was his primary occupation. Ha-ha, ho-ho, oh excuse me can we have the bill please. 4 Beers (monolithic variety), 1 steak, 1 salad = €96
Turns out, worlds' biggest beers cost €18 each. Good job we were drunk otherwise i may have cried. We paid up and weaved a path back towards the hotel. Plan was to head home, nap and shower etc then head back out later to get ass violated by the tourist bars. Genius. When we arrived back at the eiffel tower 'viewing deck' we decided it was time for a nap already and lay down an dhad a little sleepy amongst all the milling tourists. Not the best idea. There was no way either of us could make it back to the hotel yet, 4km or 45 miles away, whatever it was. We moved under a tree into the shade so we could sleep off some of the beer so we could make it home wthout dying.
I awoke three times over the following hour or so, gauging my sober rating with a little stumble around the grass, much to the amusement of the surrounding spectators. I finally managed a walk without tripping over my own hands and awoke sawyer. Bad move. Dude had to throw up in a bush under the tower. It's a good job i'm devoid of the shame gene. After being incredibly respectful too and taking a piss in above mentioned bush, i emerged to find Sawyer chatting to a local and then stepping out in the road in front of a carnival float. I pulled him back by his throat/arm/t-shirt and this was a theme to be repeated all the way back to the hotel. I purchased approximately 14 gallons of bottled water, some coke, bananas and a mars bar. (Tasted foreign). How I kept the will to live when I could barely keep my eyes open and my companion is walking into oncoming traffic is beyond me.
I have vague recollections of singing morrissey and considering a career as a road crossing inspector and another little nap on the pavement opposite the hotel....but we eventually made it. There were grand intentions to make it back out that evening, but when i hit the 37th hour...(9pm) i was fast asleep, as we both were till 10am the following morning.
We had cancelled out the hangovers, checked out the hotel like lil chris and headed back into paris, this time along the north bank of the river towards the arc de triumph and the champs elysee. The walk nearly killed me. I think we frequented approximately 78% of the benches along our way. We wondered exactly how far we'd walked when we reached the Statue of Liberty.
The parisian drivers are mentally ill. All of them. There are no lanes, rules, laws. Nothing. It's a free for all. When we saw a car being pulled over by three army trucks and a police car, the only conclusion i could draw was that he had a dead stripper in the boot because there were blatantly no traffic lawsin place. We sat at the foot of the arch and watched the traffic. It was like a cross between whacky races, hillbilly rally and booze britain.
The rest of the Sunday was fairly sedate. Lunch in the sun with espresso and sunburn. A brilliant idea to take the walk up the eiffel tower. Why oh why did i say yes? I could have spent that €3 on, i dunno, a pipette full of beer. I made it almost to the first platform when i practically died. I was lightheaded, dizzy, unable to breathe and about to faint. Brill. I blame anaemia. I headed back down and lay on the grass, (our favourite are from the day before as it was) and took photos of a girl with ugly extensionswhile sawyer headed up to the second platform.
Walk home with muchas complaining and a bet where i may or may not have gambled my cat away with regards to the location of narnia.
Morrissey shall always remind me of driving out of Paris, through the death tunnels, in the sunshine, happy but exhausted.
Spontaneity is the name of the game
x